Apple Drops Wikileaks App

An app which let you view Wikileaks content and follow the site's Twitter feed has been dropped from Apple's App store, Techcrunch reports:

"Basically the paid app was selling WikiLeaks content (available for free) for $1.99. Its entry into the app store on December 17th was actually surprising, as Apple is usually quite strict and somewhat vague about its app approval standards. WikiLeaks and founder Julian Assange are quite controversial, to put it lightly but I’m not sure if the app directly violated anything in Apple’s TOS. In the past couple of weeks corporate biggies Amazon, PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and Bank of America have all tried to disassociate themselves in one way or another from WikiLeaks. If this isn’t some kind of glitch, Apple has plenty company."

Comments

These apps are used to track and gather information on their users first and foremost. This information is invaluable to marketers and others. We really are now living a brave new world, soft totalitarian-type society, and this is just another piece of proof. The potential for abuse, and it's consequences, are profound.

Posted by: ratbastard | Dec 21, 2010 9:38:54 AM

Woooah....

Insanity.

I complain A LOT about the UK but wow, it's really easy if you have no money in the US to be really ignorant of what is happening in your country or around the world.

I guess that is how you keep the mass on a tight leash...

Posted by: Rowan | Dec 21, 2010 9:50:23 AM

Rowan,

We here in the U.S. have as an advanced information infrastructure [or lack thereof] as the U.K. The U.S. is not a 3rd world country, Rowan. If you have a desire to find out what's going on around the Earth, from a variety of sources, it's no problem, Rowan. Even for 'poor' people.

And Rowan, you are aware the U.S. is, in and of itself, a very large country [the size of a continent] with the 3rd largest population of any nation on Earth? And we're very diverse. Someone of say Hispanic or Asian descent living thousands of miles from the east coast probably, legitimately, has little interest in, for example, Eurocentric or Anglo-centric issues.

Posted by: ratbastard | Dec 21, 2010 10:23:38 AM

This is actually completely in line with things. I couldn't make an app that costs money to display content from CNN, so someone can't make an app to view wikileaks' information when they have no connection or authority to charge for their content.

Posted by: Joey Y | Dec 21, 2010 10:55:29 AM

@Joey Y:
Your CNN example is not the same as Wikleaks. CNN is a mega-corporation which owns all of it's materials. Wikileaks is an non-profit organization (that accepts donations) who puts out free information for without charging.

By your example, there should not be any paid dictionary apps in the App Store either, yet there are plenty.